Return on investment from Issuetrak software

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return on investment from Issuetrak software

Abst r act

Quantifying the financial benefits of using Issuetrak's software to improve help desk, customer support and business operations efficiency is useful because it helps organizations justify the expense and project future cost savings. Return on Investment (ROI) calculations are complex because the software impacts so many individuals and departments within an organization, and saves time and money in different ways. However, by interviewing four Issuetrak customers and asking them to estimate the improvement in efficiency, it was possible to calculate time and money saved, and derive a Return on Investment.

Con cl usi on

After completing extensive research on return on investment and creating an unique methodology for calculating Issuetrak's ROI based on interviews with Issuetrak's clients, it was determined that Issuetrak software provides a return of 126%. An ROI of 126% means that for every $1.00 that was invested in Issuetrak, a client gains an additional $1.26 from using Issuetrak software.

I n t r odu ct i on

Issuetrak's software delivers greater efficiency and reduced cost to organizations that are providing service desk services, supporting internal or external customers, tracking issues, or managing processes.

The four main benefits of using the Issuetrak software are:

Issues can be handled more efficiently, Company activities can be monitored, Problems can be solved faster, Customers receive a higher level of support.

Organizations that are considering the purchase of Issuetrak software will benefit from understanding how other users of the software are able to save time and reduce costs.

Quantifying the benefits that accrue to Issuetrak's customers is complex because the software impacts so many individuals and departments within an organization, and saves time and money in many ways. Although it is not simple to calculate a return on investment (ROI), being able to define a way to estimate the return has significant value for prospective users.

In order to calculate ROI for these benefits, our first objective was to research how other software companies calculate ROI. We used that information to define a methodology for calculating ROI for Issuetrak's software. After defining the methodology, the next step was to interview four companies that use Issuetrak, to learn how they use the software, and to quantify the efficiencies each

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company has achieved through using the software. With that data we were able to estimate the savings from using Issuetrak's software and define a return on investment.

Interview Process

In order to understand the efficiencies gained from using Issuetrak, we conducted interviews with four of Issuetrak's clients:

Maricopa County, Fulton Financial, International Species and Information Systems, and Campus Apartments.

Based on the preliminary research for ROI methodologies a set of questions was created to identify what benefits of Issuetrak would be possible to quantify.

Questions: 1. How do you use Issuetrak software? a. Help desk? b. Issue tracking? c. Complaint collection/service? d. Other?

2. How many employees work with the software? (every employee)

3. Average time spent per action (seconds or minutes) before Issuetrak? a. Average time spent per action after installing Issuetrak? i. Use this to calculate the savings

4. Average times each action is completed per hour? a. Multiply this by hours/year to find time savings/year

5. Amount paid for Issuetrak? a. Licensing cost b. Installation cost c. Training cost d. Maintenance cost e. Misc. costs

6. Time spent between installing Issuetrak and when full productivity was reached? a. In weeks?

7. How long will this version of Issuetrak be productive before needing to upgrade? Look for newer software?

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We also asked: 1. Do you measure customer satisfaction? a. If so, what was your customer satisfaction score before Issuetrak and what is it now? b. If not, would you rate on a scale of 1-5 the customer satisfaction before and after installing Issuetrak? 2. Do you have metrics measuring employee morale/job satisfaction? a. If so, what were your metrics before and after Issuetrak? b. If not, would you rate on a scale of 1-5 the employee morale before and after installing Issuetrak? 3. What is your customer retention rate? a. Has it changed since installing Issuetrak? 4. Since installing Issuetrak, has your company's reputation been affected? a. If so, in a positive or negative way? b. Are there any publications or headlines we could reference? c. Are there any publications or headlines we could reference?

Each client answered the set of questions to the best of their ability. Some were unable to identify exactly which employees were using Issuetrak and how often particular employees were using the software. From interviewing each of the clients, the one value that could accurately be produced for all five clients was the number of times issues had been tracked with Issuetrak software since it was first used by the company. If the client could not produce a value for how much time was saved in completing the tasks, the number became insignificant to ROI calculations. However, most were able to give an estimate of the time saved, which ranged from 10-25%.

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Client Background Information

The background information for each of the clients was important to understanding how each utilized Issuetrak software. Each client's business objectives were unique, as was their use of the software to help make their business operations more efficient. Maricopa County, which includes the city of Phoenix, is one of the largest counties in the United States. The County uses Issuetrak software across various different departments as a help desk application for public works. Issues are called in, tracked with Issuetrak, and then sent to technicians. Alternatively, customers can log into Issuetrak and submit their own problems. The users of Issuetrak are the employees of Maricopa County who work in the county workstations. Fulton Financial is a banking organization that was started in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Throughout the years Fulton Financial has experienced much growth and expansion, including an aggressive expansion of branch services, such as providing 24 hour ATMs. Fulton Financial uses the Issuetrak software for problem and incident management. The clients are internal customers ? employees of Fulton Financial. The technical calls then are called into Fulton Financial, where Issuetrak is used to track the problems. The problems range from urgent problems that need to be immediately solved to lower priority problems that can take longer to resolve. International Species and Information Systems (ISIS) is a nonprofit organization that maintains a database used around the world to help different zoos, aquariums and related conservation organizations share information about animals and their environments. Issuetrak is used to track the issues that arise using the ISIS desktop application. Issuetrak allows problems to be more efficiently tracked, and allows all employees to have access to emails that were used to help solve the application problems. Campus Apartments is one of the nation's largest developers, owners and managers of housing for students. Campus Apartments uses the software for issues that arise with IT helpdesk activity, and also is used to manage the external relations customer contact program. Residents are able to bring up issues to the company (not including maintenance issues), with a system called CA Cares. Issuetrak is credited for helping keep track of the issues.

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